(no subject)
This is the story...
I got bored at work tonight at work, so I turned to the only amusement I could enjoy during a 45 second (-ish) machine cycle - my cell phone. I jumped on Mobile Web, decided to glance through the headlines, as one had caught my eye a bit earlier and I didn't have a chance to read it. The second headline was "Knifings Stun Britain." Once I processed that "knifings" was knif-ings (it didn't look right when I looked at it the first time, get off me), I figured that would be an interesting article to read. Well, I was right, but not exactly how I expected to be.
The jist of the story is that there have been about 16 teens that have been stabbed to death in London this year. Yeah, that's sad and all, but what makes that so interesting, right? I'm getting to that. What you need to know about London (if you don't already...if you do, my apologies for insulting your intelligence) is that handguns (all guns? I'll have to check that eventually) are outlawed. Even the police in London aren't allowed to carry handguns. So, Brits have two choices as far as weapons: 1. break the law and have a gun anyway, which a fair amount of people choose to do, or 2. find something else to use as a weapon. Sounds like the teen population is choosing option 2 and carrying knives. (I guess the other thing you need to know - if you don't know me personally - is that I am a supporter of gun rights, I excersice that right every day, and I also carry several knives at all times...not as weapons, but as tools.) So these kids have taken to killing each other with knives (or a piece of glass, in one case in the article). Yeah, I'll grant that going up against a knife gives one a bit more of a sporting chance than looking down the barrel of a gun, but that's not my point.
Here's what really got me. What's the government's solution to this problem? Make carrying knives (with a blade over 3 inches) illegal! Didn't they learn when they outlawed guns!?! The weapons don't cause the violence, it's the people using them!!! How are they planning to enforce this proposed law? Stop people on the street and search them without giving them a reason!!! I know it's not the US and they don't have the same laws we do, but it's still unbelievable that a government thinks they can get away with this.
"Carrying a knife is completely unacceptable," --Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Carrying a knife is totally acceptable. Knives have many uses other than killing people. What if you're a fisherman? Are they going to arrest you for using a 6" fillet knife to clean your fish? What about a butcher? Will he be spending four years in jail for doing his job?
"Young people need to understand that carrying knives doesn't protect you, it does the opposite - it increases the danger for all of us, destroys young lives and ruins families," --PM Brown
Are you serious?!?!?!?!? Forgive the randomness here, there's several ways I want to go with this.
-How does carrying a knife increase danger??? Let's pretend I'm a criminal for a minute. Say I'm walking around London looking for someone to rob with my 4" knife. I see a guy walking on the other side of the street, and I think he looks like a good target. I start getting ready for the attack, when he turns and I see a 12" knife hanging off his belt. Do you really think I'm still gonna try to rob this guy?!? That's called suicide.
-"Increases danger for all of us?" If I'm carrying a knife to protect myself, how is that a danger to anyone else? It's not like I'm walking around with a lit stick of dynamite for protection. That would be a danger for "all of us."
-"...destroys young lives and ruins families." Really? I didn't think an inanimate piece of steel was capable of that much action. I've certainly never seen one of my knives jump up and destroy someone's life. Again, don't blame the tool/weapon, blame the person using it. To paraphrase one of my all-time favorite bumper stickers, "If knives cause crime, spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat."
I need to wrap this up so I can get some sleep, plus I've had almost three hours to forget most of what popped into my mind when I read this story. I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I post this, and if its anything worth mentioning, I'll post it later. I'll leave you with the one small bit of sense in the whole story, a quote from Enver Solomon, deputy director of the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London:
"The clear message from research is that kids carry knives because they don't feel safe," Solomon said. "Unless you address that feeling of insecurity, you are not going to have a big impact on the number of kids carrying knives."
I got bored at work tonight at work, so I turned to the only amusement I could enjoy during a 45 second (-ish) machine cycle - my cell phone. I jumped on Mobile Web, decided to glance through the headlines, as one had caught my eye a bit earlier and I didn't have a chance to read it. The second headline was "Knifings Stun Britain." Once I processed that "knifings" was knif-ings (it didn't look right when I looked at it the first time, get off me), I figured that would be an interesting article to read. Well, I was right, but not exactly how I expected to be.
The jist of the story is that there have been about 16 teens that have been stabbed to death in London this year. Yeah, that's sad and all, but what makes that so interesting, right? I'm getting to that. What you need to know about London (if you don't already...if you do, my apologies for insulting your intelligence) is that handguns (all guns? I'll have to check that eventually) are outlawed. Even the police in London aren't allowed to carry handguns. So, Brits have two choices as far as weapons: 1. break the law and have a gun anyway, which a fair amount of people choose to do, or 2. find something else to use as a weapon. Sounds like the teen population is choosing option 2 and carrying knives. (I guess the other thing you need to know - if you don't know me personally - is that I am a supporter of gun rights, I excersice that right every day, and I also carry several knives at all times...not as weapons, but as tools.) So these kids have taken to killing each other with knives (or a piece of glass, in one case in the article). Yeah, I'll grant that going up against a knife gives one a bit more of a sporting chance than looking down the barrel of a gun, but that's not my point.
Here's what really got me. What's the government's solution to this problem? Make carrying knives (with a blade over 3 inches) illegal! Didn't they learn when they outlawed guns!?! The weapons don't cause the violence, it's the people using them!!! How are they planning to enforce this proposed law? Stop people on the street and search them without giving them a reason!!! I know it's not the US and they don't have the same laws we do, but it's still unbelievable that a government thinks they can get away with this.
"Carrying a knife is completely unacceptable," --Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Carrying a knife is totally acceptable. Knives have many uses other than killing people. What if you're a fisherman? Are they going to arrest you for using a 6" fillet knife to clean your fish? What about a butcher? Will he be spending four years in jail for doing his job?
"Young people need to understand that carrying knives doesn't protect you, it does the opposite - it increases the danger for all of us, destroys young lives and ruins families," --PM Brown
Are you serious?!?!?!?!? Forgive the randomness here, there's several ways I want to go with this.
-How does carrying a knife increase danger??? Let's pretend I'm a criminal for a minute. Say I'm walking around London looking for someone to rob with my 4" knife. I see a guy walking on the other side of the street, and I think he looks like a good target. I start getting ready for the attack, when he turns and I see a 12" knife hanging off his belt. Do you really think I'm still gonna try to rob this guy?!? That's called suicide.
-"Increases danger for all of us?" If I'm carrying a knife to protect myself, how is that a danger to anyone else? It's not like I'm walking around with a lit stick of dynamite for protection. That would be a danger for "all of us."
-"...destroys young lives and ruins families." Really? I didn't think an inanimate piece of steel was capable of that much action. I've certainly never seen one of my knives jump up and destroy someone's life. Again, don't blame the tool/weapon, blame the person using it. To paraphrase one of my all-time favorite bumper stickers, "If knives cause crime, spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat."
I need to wrap this up so I can get some sleep, plus I've had almost three hours to forget most of what popped into my mind when I read this story. I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I post this, and if its anything worth mentioning, I'll post it later. I'll leave you with the one small bit of sense in the whole story, a quote from Enver Solomon, deputy director of the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London:
"The clear message from research is that kids carry knives because they don't feel safe," Solomon said. "Unless you address that feeling of insecurity, you are not going to have a big impact on the number of kids carrying knives."